Therapeutic Summer Camp for Katif Children

B'nai Brith and the Koby Mandell Foundation get together to send children who were expelled from Gush Katif to summer camp.

By Maayana Miskin

First Publish: 7/26/2010, 3:55 PM / Last Update: 7/27/2010, 7:10 AM

B'nai Brith

B'nai Brith International and the Koby Mandell Foundation are working together this summer to provide a camp for children expelled from Gush Katif in the 2005 “Disengagement.” The camp will include programming designed by professional therapists as well as traditional summer fun like swimming, hiking, and arts and crafts.

The project features a five-day day camp and three days of camping and hiking in northern Israel. Organizers are expecting up to 100 participants from grades 1 to 8.

B'nai Brith International has operated a summer camp for Israeli children whose families were affected by war or terrorism since 2003. The Koby Mandell Foundation operates Camp Koby, a therapeutic camps for children affected by terrorism and for those who have lost family to terrorism, war, or other tragedies.

The new camp “is an incredible camp for kids who really need a break from their circumstances,” said B'nai Brith Vice President Daniel Mariaschin. Many of the children expelled from Gush Katif still live in the temporary housing provided immediately after the expulsion.

The Koby Mandell Foundation was created in memory of 13-year-old Koby Mandell, who along with his classmate Yosef Ishran was brutally killed by Palestinian Authority terrorists in 2001 in a cave near his home town of Tekoa, in eastern Gush Etzion.He and his friend had simply gone out exploring, as boys do all over the world.